MakerBot Merging With Stratasys 65
MakerBot Industries, creators of the popular Thing-O-Matic and Replicator line of 3-D printers, is being acquired by Stratasys, a company that's been working on 3-D printing and production systems since 1989. '[Stratasys] facilitates the printing of prototypes, concepts, components, parts and more on an industrial scale and for commercial applications. ... Stratasys has demonstrated it’s going to be aggressive about owning the 3D printing space, and the MakerBot buy is the consumer-focused piece in that puzzle. For MakerBot, it gives the startup access to Stratasys’ wealth of industry experience.' According to the official news release, 'MakerBot will operate as a separate subsidiary of Stratasys, maintaining its own identity, products and go-to-market strategy.' MakerBot has sold 11,000 of its Replicator 2 devices in the past 9 months, accounting for half of all its 3-D printer sales since 2009.
Patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stratasys has some patents on 3D printing, so that might be relevant here. One of their more important patents is about making a 3D FDM printer (like the makerbot) with an enclosed build area. Nobody but stratasys is allowed to enclose the build area (existing printers normally have the build area open-air to avoid this patent). Obvious, yes, but nobody has bothered to challenge it yet.
Perhaps makerbot realized that if they wanted to continue to improve their product, they'd start running afoul of such patents, hence the merger?